Limit Text on the Home Page

Jan 122010
 

Please excuse my blog, or other blogs. Not all websites are built the same, and the advice to limit text on the home page may not apply to you. In most cases though, limiting prose text on the home page is good advice, and this can even be applied to a blog.

Websites need tag lines or introduction messages. It helps the new visitors out immensely. What new visitors don’t need is a huge paragraph or two on the home page, explaining the website. Leave that for an about us page.

Imagine eBay with Prose Text

Using eBay as an example, you can see why using too much, or in eBay’s case, any unnecessary text would be a complete waste of time.

Here is a screenshot of their home page now: Continue reading »

Is It All About the Home Page?

Oct 132009
 

A common occurrence and necessity is to spend more time working on the home page compared to other pages of a website. Many experts will tell you that you can’t forget your other content, and smartly so. Search engines like Google sees each page of your site uniquely, and your contact page could actually bring in more visitors than your home page. This is all often the case, but I wanted to know by how much.

So I did a little study using Google Analytics reports from ten different sites. The sites are completely random in industry, and in type. Continue reading »

Network Solutions – Not Ready to Compete

Aug 192009
 

If you have to ask, then you can’t afford it. Is that really what Network Solutions is going for? Wielding yet another new logo on their ultra white site, you will find that revealing prices on their home page is not their policy. Ever since they popped online, prices on the home page has appeared as a no no. Continue reading »

Retailers Home Page

May 292009
 

Hopefully you read my last post, Characteristics of a Retail Store. It was about a visitors expectation of a home page on a retail site, and how a flower shop I had just did an analysis on was missing out. By chance, my next client has a retail site, but unlike the flower shop they nailed the home page with essential and expected items. I thought I would just make this a quick post to show how they did it.

Three Essential Items

The site is Memory America, and they sell PC memory. Looking at their home page you can see how they landed the three major elements: category list and or icons, best sellers or seasonal products, and the large promotional item or message.

homepage

The home page also included many of the other important trust factors like: phone number, customer support, and policies. See my last post, Characteristics of a Retail Store, for a more complete list. The home page is the information portal and the shoppers leading hand to making a purchase.

Category Pages

Though the flower shop could take a lesson on how to do a home page from this memory site, I think this memory site could take a lesson from the flower shops category pages. The flower shop had thumbnails for their products, and though the memory site has it on their home page, their category pages are completely void of them.

If you look at one of the memory pages category pages, Dell memory, you will find a  giant white space in the main content with only a couple of links. You get the feeling that you almost landed on the wrong page. Pictures draw visitors in deeper, and when selling products they make navigation work twice as fast.

homepage

Characteristics of a Retail Store

May 282009
 

Yesterday I did a web usability and design analysis on CityFlora.com. Let me start that again. Yesterday I did a really bad analysis of CityFlora.com. What happened? I had breakfast, I had coffee, I even went on a quick walk before I did it. I’ll tell you what happened. It confused me.

My Problem

When doing the analysis, there are many factors I consider that are based on the home page. When doing the analysis I thought I was on their home page, when in reality I was on one of their category pages. The person in charge of their site thought I was crazy when they saw the results. I obviously didn’t know what I was talking about. He was right, and when I realized the mistake I did a second analysis of the site. What I found was why I made the mistake, and something that could drastically improve their sales.

The Home Page is a Category Page

So how did I mistake a category page as the home page? Go to there site, and you will see. All the pages look the same, and the only place you will really see any differences is near the footer of the home page. The home page has some additional content covering benefits and services. Actual confusion can really kick in if you were to click on the menu item “All flowers”. All flowers takes you to their home page. This, to me, is almost proof that their home page is a category page. There menu makes it out to be.

Making a Home Page Look Like a Home Page

So the problem I see with CityFlora.com is that they need to make their home page look like a home page. You may now be asking what makes a home page look like a home page on a retail site? Well if you are selling a product, there are several important factors, and they all point to two things. Create trust, and buy this product. They make you feel comfy, and tell you what and where to buy. Here is how they do it.

List of important key elements that should be found on the home page of a retail site:

  • Logo links to home page, even on the home page
  • Search function
  • Phone number – often in more than one spot
  • Shopping cart button or link
  • Category links and/or icons
  • Best sellers and/or seasonal products
  • A link to site policies
  • My Account – Helpful for return customers
  • A link to a help page or customer service page
  • A large amount of space centered on page for promotional item or message

To clarify the last item listed I have taken a screenshot from HP’s store.

hp

Essential Items

Most of the items found on the list could very easily found on every page of a site, but three of them really do stand out. These are what I would consider essential items on a retail home page. They are a category list and or icons, best sellers or seasonal products, and the large promotional item or message like the HP example above.

Give Visitors Something to Remember, and Something to Buy!

By making the home page stand out from the rest of the site you also create a few opportunities besides just being able to recognize it. The most important one is your ability to lead a visitor to a desired action. Making it bigger and bolder than the rest of your site gives the visitor something to remember, and if done right, gives them something to buy.


RSS Button On Home Page Introduction

May 142009
 

One of the things I like to do with my analytics is log the changes I make to a website using a journal. Another thing I like to do is look at those changes a month later.

Now You See it, Now You Don’t

A month ago today I returned my big RSS button found in the introduction message on my home page. Two months ago I had removed it to see if it would influence my subscriber growth at all. With it gone, I watched the numbers slowly dwindle, and it actually decreased my subscriber base by 5% over the course of a month. Ouch! . The day I returned the button my graph immediately turned around, and gained 10% more subscribers over this last month. Not great considering my numbers, but in the right direction for sure.

This lead me to another change that I made today, reducing the size of my introduction message just a little bit more. This put the RSS button even closer to the hot spot of this site making it an easier eye target. The other benefit of reducing the introduction message was that it simply removes descision and reading time. Giving information faster to get that desired action.

Action on Your Home Page Final

Mar 232009
 

A simple post, Action on Your Home Page, turned into a three part post about getting action out of your home page. This is part three, and I will be using A Service Master Company site again, American Home Shield, as the third example.

Layout is Old

The first two examples, Terminix and TruGreen, were great example on how to build a successful home page. They quickly catch your attention, create interest, desire, and action. When I took a look at A Service Masters Company’s third site, American Home Shield, I knew it was it was a little more dated than the others. Besides looking at the copyright in the footer, here is what tipped me off.

What’s Wrong

Looking at the home page, I didn’t see the winning layout I had seen in the previous sites. It looked nice, it had a large action item, but there was nothing compelling about it at all.

ahs1

The main content was just some basic information about getting a home warranty, boring. Next box, action, already? Third bit of content, here is our phone number, call of for service…NOT. Well, maybe if I was a customer already. Fourth major content, explanation and reasoning for a home warranty. Simply put, the home page didn’t sell. There was no attention grabbers, interest, and at that point, action.

Clear Purpose

The other failing point of the home page here is the fact that it didn’t have a clear purpose. Is the page designed to get prospects to fill in the quote information, or is it to help current customers by offering customer service information? The purpose has not been clearly defined, and it will fail to convert (whatever the primary goal is) like its sister sites. They did have a few pages that were a little more goal oriented though, and I am wondering if they were what lead to the new designs with the other sites, see Home Warranty Inspection for an example.

Having A Plan

Having a plan is often the hardest part of web design. There is so much we can do, so much we want to do, and thanks to the internet, so much we can do. Stopping to think about what exactly a page is for can be the hardest part. Hopefully your site has a plan, it’s pages are well planned, and that you have understood what I have been talking about over the past three posts.

Action on Your Home Page

Mar 202009
 

You want visitors on your website to do something, right? It may be to read your post, sign up for something, or to simply look at another page. Whatever it is that you want your visitor to do, it really boils down to sales. You need to “Sell” your visitor on completing the desired task.

So what makes a sale? First, may I say, sales are easy. If a customer wants or needs your product they will buy it. What makes a job hard for a sales person is that the customer may not know they need or want your product. It’s your job to create that need or want. This is a webmasters job as well when developing a site.

AIDA

A.I.D.A. is a sales acronym/technique to create that need or want rapidly.

  • A – Attention
  • I – Interest
  • D – Desire
  • A – Action

As a salesperson/webmaster you need to first get the prospects attention, then you spark interest (this can work into a customers need), then you work on creating desire (customers want product now), and then you get their action.

Here is a website that does this wonderfully, Terminix. Terminx is probably the biggest pest control company here in the United States. If you visit their home page you will see AIDA in full action. The first get your attention by the use of flash video, you see where bugs could live, yuck.

termite

They then create interest using a couple of methods. The flash offers an interactive way for you to see where pests could be living. They also have the “Termite Swarm” report. This is a great method because it can draw you for curiosity purposes, and also create some desire by using the “Fear Factor”, another common sales technique.

Creating the desire is the termite swarm fear factor followed up with something that has worked since the invention of the word “Sale”. Discounts, and freebies are near magical in their effectiveness. Using them will often create a desire, even if there is no need for the product.

Then the most important item is the visitors action. Well placed, their action item, “Get a Quote” is prominently displayed top left, and additionally takes up a large amount of screen space. You probably wouldn’t click on it first, but you certainly saw it, and know it’s there. Action will kick in when the want and need are put to work using the AIDA plan.

Don’t Give Up

So here is something else this termite company is doing well in regards to getting the action to occur. They didn’t give up if the action didn’t occur on the home page. They keep asking on other pages, and the AIDA technique is used on several of their pages. See example: Termite Control. Attention, interest, desire, and action can all be found.

The Biggest Problem

Regardless of your technique, if you have a specific goal for a visitor you a head of the game. As someone who has been building sites for small business companies over ten years, the biggest problem I often find is most business owners have no real idea why they want a website, other that the fact that they need one. It is a good idea to have a site, but define a clear reason on why you want it, and what it is supposed to do. Designing for it then becomes a lot more effective.

Part II

Action On Your Home Page II

Clearly on a Fun Page

Mar 052009
 

I thought I would expand a little about my last poll, Logo Link. The question was “Do you expect the logo of a website to link to the home page?”  The reason I thought I would ask this question is because I think there is some confusion going on about linking to the home page on the home page. There are some very popular usability experts out their saying you should not link to the home page from the home page. I agree. I believe there are some exceptions though.

Some Exceptions

I say there are some exceptions very loosely. The reality is, many sites qualify as the exception. Is your site is dynamic, changing either automatically by grabbing a feed or a database query? If this is the case, content could change at any given moment. Users know this, and often want to refresh the content. So should their be a link to a home page on the home page? Absolutely. You should be smart about how you do it though. Here is an example:

fun

If you check out this funny video site, you can see a great example. Their site is dynamic, meaning there could be new information posted at any given moment, so a user could want to refresh it by using the home page link. The reason I say this is a great example is because they have done something to the menu that makes it clear you are on the home page. The button “Home” is a different color than the rest of the menu buttons. That way you know you are there (on the home page). If you look at a different page, like their most popular page Girls Gallery, the menu reflects that you are on the gallery page, and not the home page. Basically, it’s OK to link to the home page from the home page, if it’s clear you are on the home page. Home page, home page, home page!

Making The Logo Work

So what is up with the logo? Your logo needs to be put to work. Besides saying who you are, it is a recognized symbol for “Take me to your home page.” If you look at the poll results for, Do you expect the logo of a website to link to the home page, already 90%+ voters have said yes. Visitors expect this for most sites, and your sites design should consider this. Should it link to the home page on the home page? Yes. Even if your site is just a static site, users want reassurance that they are there. All the visual clues could have already been there, but visitors click sometimes just to click. Give them the satisfaction, and let them know they are where they want to be. Not having it link to the home page, even if they are already there could create some unnecessary anxiety.

When Do You Not Link

So after reading my example of how and why you can, you might be thinking when shouldn’t you. You shouldn’t link to the home page on the home page if the link would not give a visual clue. The most common scenario would be simply a non-menu text link. I’m hoping you are not one of these webmasters, but way to often I find links in content leading to the home page on the home page. I can only guess the reasoning for this is because they are trying to optimize for search engines, but I don’t really even see the benefit in that either. It can create confusion for the visitor, and then truly generates a wasted click by the user. Linking is this fashion additionally becomes irritating to the user, and may even make your site appear as spammy.

Every site is different, so as a general rule just try to make it clear to a visitor where they are at, and try not to confuse them by linking to a place they already are.

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